


I've Been Wandering Around, But I Still Come Back To You

by catsilhouette



Category: Psych
Genre: M/M, lots of vague angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 05:24:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5151926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catsilhouette/pseuds/catsilhouette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The very long and somewhat complicated story of how Shawn ends up shirtless on Gus' couch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Been Wandering Around, But I Still Come Back To You

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Queen's You're My Best Friend.

a.) They were four, and it was raining, and to stave off the inevitable boredom, they were coloring. Well, scribbling was a more accurate term for the violently purple back-and-forth lines Shawn was making, pausing every so often to peer over at Gus' paper. Ooh. A rocket ship. Shawn leaned over and traced the three fingers Gus had pressing down on his paper, making a weird loopy shape in the upper corner. It was purple. When Gus protested and threw his red crayon across the room, Shawn let him make a weird loopy shape around his own hand next to the purple scribble with a blue crayon. He drew tiny yellow faces inside the four blue loops and proclaimed them an alien family. Then he tried to draw on Gus' arm and learned that crayon doesn't work well on arms. Or legs. Definitely not feet. He also learned that the alien family liked to stay on Gus' fridge, and he waved goodbye to them as he left. They didn't wave back.

b.) They were seven, and Gus had haltingly told him, between multiple hesitant pauses and shrugs, what had happened. He said his mom had told him, and Shawn felt upset and betrayed. And then he realized that he had no reason to, because he didn't know what had happened, and that his parents hadn't told him, and it had been ages ago anyway. He didn't want a new brother or sister anyway - he had Gus. And Gus had Joy and Shawn didn't like Joy. She was bossy and talked too much. Gus played ball with him whenever he asked and traded lunch with him at school, he didn't need someone new messing that up. And he wanted his parents all to himself, so his dad could take him places and his mom could pick him up from school and make him jello cake. He wasn't going to share. Not with anyone but Gus, because his parents took Gus places too and made him jello cake and that was okay. But no one else. No one.

c.) They were twelve and constantly sitting on roofs, popping the screen out of Shawn's bedroom window and cautiously inching themselves out and down, watching the sun rise or set or blaze down on them with a cruel glory. Shawn wasn't popular and neither was Gus, and they spent time talking about girls. And then one day, when the sky had split open and it was raining buckets, Shawn had quietly brought up a guy. An older one, with better hair and a cool jacket. Gus had nodded, relieved inside that he wasn't the only one, and then they spent time talking about girls and guys and every so often they'd land on the same one. Gus always backed off first. Shawn was grateful for that. None of it came to anything much, just lingering looks and a lot of wishing and the occasional stained sheet, but Shawn knew he could count on Gus. Even if he didn't talk to him for a whole day after he kissed Better Hair And Cooler Jacket behind the gym. It was wet and weird and Better Hair turned out to be kind of a jerk, but it had happened and Gus wished Shawn knew how disappointed he was.

d.) They were fifteen and Not Talking. Shawn had wanted to go with Gus to homecoming, and Gus had taken that tramp Lola and now Shawn was alone, playing video games when he should be getting cups of spiked punch and crawling under tables with his best friend. He decided Gus wasn't his best friend anymore, that he didn't need friends, because he could score a 100 on the DET all on his own and he could do whatever he wanted all on his own and who needed a stupid, backstabbing best friend anyway? There were parties and he went, talking to girls in shady corners, giving them boozy kisses, dragging his hands up under their tops and smiling when he felt eyes on his back, jealous, hot eyes that deserved this. He fucked them in strange bedrooms, not bothering to be quiet, wanting the whole world to know that he didn't need Gus. The girls were nice to him, they kissed him gently and had soft hair and smelled wonderful and let him do whatever he wanted because he was charming and laughed into kisses and had a nice tongue and was a fucking joy to have in bed and really, it was too sad Gus couldn't have this. But Tara or Tabitha or Tammy didn't even have to ask twice - or once, for that matter - and so what if he foolishly thought Gus would be his best friend forever. That couldn't happen. Welcome to the real world, Shawny boy.

e.) They were nineteen and apart. Gus was in college, Shawn was lifeguarding on Pacific Emerald Cruise Lines, spending most of his time shirtless, flirting with golden tourists, peeking over his sunglasses at the bar and stealing drinks for his conquests. He saved a small child from drowning and was shaken afterwards, stuffing his face into his pillow and wishing he had someone to talk to - and that rampant desire came back, after fifteen years. His father had declared himself unreasonable and Shawn thought he was beyond mentally unstable; moving to fucking Florida of all places was simply not what a rational man did. Anyway, he didn't have the number for that house, or assisted living community or wherever it was that his father was gracing the locals with his presence. His mother had gone somewhere, out of the country, probably, and it cost money to make calls. He did not have money, not more than the fifty bucks he'd tucked inside his waistband, anyway. And finally there was Gus. Gus Corner was a deep dark place in his mind, a rather lonely spot he'd barred up and forgotten about. Actually that was a lie, he tried to forget about it, he really did, and every time he felt himself wander near Gus Corner, distant alarm bells went off that reminded him about the fact that Gus did not return his calls about life updates and that Gus was ignoring him and that Gus had a 3 am radio station that he regularly fell asleep on and that Gus Did Not Care About Shawn. Because why should he? He had half a degree tucked neatly inside his pants now, just like his shirt, and he probably had a girlfriend or a boyfriend that he probably took on nice dates and kissed under dim lights. And really, when it came to it, Gus had no obligation to Shawn. Or anyone else, to his knowledge. There was no one in the world who owed Shawn anything, and for a moment, as he stared out at all the people clambering around in bright, tight clothes carrying around shiny plastic toys, he thought about them. How that one mom with the nice hair and wide smile brought her husband and three kids as a last resort, because he was sleeping with his secretary and she couldn't afford to leave him. How the smallest, stickiest child he'd seen that week was such a mess because her mother had died a month ago, and her dad was trying to pull it all together somehow, some way. How the young couple that sat by the poolside but never went in had just lost their first child, and were utterly overcome with grief. All of these people had lives that were so bad, that wrung them out so horribly, that they had to come out here on a giant boat in the middle of nowhere to spend time with their families, and even that left them tired and stressed. But he also knew that these people had other people that picked up the phone, brothers and sisters and grandparents and parents, and he was supposed to have Gus.

But he didn't.

He didn't cry after that, he focused his energies on wooing young, fairly-untouched-by-life people who appreciated him and invited him to dinner with their attractive friends whom he also ended up fucking, sometimes alone and sometimes, well. Not Alone. He went for midnight swims and saw dolphins and suppressed a decades-old desire to ride one, remembering with a pang who put that idea in his head in the first place. He took off all his clothes and kissed a sweet, freckled boy under the moonlight one night, and spent the next with a limber girl who had wide, fluttery eyes and tasted of pineapple. Some nights he spent in his room alone, with sheets that smelled of salt and no one to talk to, and slipped his hand inside his pants and thought of nicer times, of kisses with people he actually gave a crap about, and he slung an arm across his face and bit down hard to keep from screaming. Sometimes he laughed about it; most times, he cried, wishing he wasn't so alone. He thought back to the blue alien family tacked on Gus' fridge and felt like picking up the phone, but the one time he actually did, he found that the number he had had been disconnected. He hung the phone up so hard it broke - he was fired for it, and he went gladly, far away from the tropical misery that he'd accumulated over the past year.

f.) They were twenty-six and seeing each other for the first time in years. Shawn had come into town on his motorcycle and looked Gus up, hoping he was still in town. Plan B was crash the Gusters' house and find an address or a phone number, something to help him, anything, really. For seven years, Shawn had tried to forget Gus, forget Santa Barbara, hell, forget anything about his life since before he was twenty. He slept with girls only now, usually waitresses, mostly blonde ones who were aspiring actresses. People who were shallow and tacky and Not Like Gus. And it was okay, it was more than okay, but now he was here and he was done playing straight, like some trashbag who waxed cars on the weekends and played pool in his spare time. He'd kept this itch under control for far too long and it was time to figure this out, whether there was something between them or not, whether Shawn had made all of this worse over the years by romanticizing everything or if he actually was in love with his best friend.

He found the key and opened the door - on a second floor landing, a rock seemed woefully out of place - and settled in, finding an apple on the counter and a soda in the fridge. After an hour of lounging around and watching shit daytime TV, he decided to take a nap, leaving his shoes and socks on the floor and climbing under the intensely fluffy comforter. It was hot, and he had fragmented, oddly colorful dreams of himself and Gus in an abandoned train station, sitting on the tracks that were bathed in the orange glow of a rapidly setting sun, touching foreheads but not kissing, and he could feel Gus' hands in his hair, and then they were on the roof and the sky was pink and purple and they were holding hands, and he could feel a strange warmth inside, as if the sun had set and then risen again inside him, and then they were on the train station again, except now it was grey and very blurry and there was a train this time, it rolled onto the tracks, and people were hurrying towards it, and when it left, Shawn was all alone on the platform. He glanced down and saw his hand melt, saw the flesh drip away into blood and felt that slowly fall on the platform, drop by drop, and then he could see the white -

With a strangled shout, he woke, thrashing around, wrestling with the fluffy comforter. He felt hot and sweaty, and leapt out of bed, running to the bathroom to splash water on his face. it was not real it was not real it was not real. He looked down at his perfectly okay hands and sighed, letting himself lean against the sink, running his hands through his hair wildly. His mouth felt dry and he could hear himself breathe, and he headed to the kitchen to get a glass of water. As he shut the tap and turned around, he heard the latch unlock, and dropped the wet glass. Gus took one look at him, the shattered glass, and threw his keys at Shawn's head, muttering something about how he was going to kill him - an empty threat, really, because he'd had years of ideal situations and tools at his disposal and Shawn was still alive and kicking.

Shawn found himself hugging Gus tightly, with years of affection to make up for, and he kept mumbling apologies in Gus' perfectly pressed collar, unintelligible to both of them. He felt Gus' hands around him, on his back and then in his hair, pulling at him.

"Yeah, you better be sorry,"

Shawn pulled away, thinking about everything for a long, torturous moment. He pulled Gus closer, closer, closer, until they could have been kissing but weren't, until his mouth was softly open on Gus and his tongue was on Gus' lip and Shawn very quietly asked if this was okay, mentally pleading for this to be okay, for Gus to be open and down with this, and he could feel his heart stuttering along, making tiny pits in his chest from where it was banging so hard. Shawn felt Gus nod under him, slowly, and then, he was being thoroughly and painfully kissed - his chest felt like exploding and he couldn't breathe, and Gus pushed him against the counter, winding his fingers in his hair and pulling at it. Shawn broke away, gasping, staring at the ceiling, feeling Gus kiss a wet trail down his neck, feeling Gus' mouth against his throat as he swallowed over and over, breathless from whatever this was.

Gus dragged him to the couch and threw him down, demanding to talk. Shawn whined and pouted and stuck his hips out enticingly and received a punch to the shoulder for his efforts. He settled down after that, hugging a cushion and leaning against the arm, fighting the urge to just strip and bang. But no, he'd escaped from this cycle of meaningless sex and Gus was probably right, he usually was in these matters, and so Shawn took a deep breath and made a valiant effort to ignore his tight jeans, shifting slightly to make more room.

Gus told him about college, about the band and the guys, about the three girlfriends he'd brought home and the one boyfriend he hadn't, about the trip to Boston, and how he'd always wondered about Shawn but assumed he was never enough. How Shawn constantly taking off made Gus think there was something in the world that he couldn't offer, some weird thirst he couldn't ever quench. Shawn listened, gaping, at these insecurities Gus was stuttering over, how he could never know when Shawn would be where, how even Shawn's dad didn't have a number (he'd asked, so many times) and that left Shawn flying in the wind and Gus rooted, swaying from side to side. And of course, the one time Shawn called, Gus had just moved and hadn't gotten his phone hooked up yet. Luck, coincidence, the universe wasn't ready for them yet, whatever it was, it hurt. Shawn told him about Austin, about the cruise, about that one time they were in his kitchen and he really felt like he was going to kiss Gus, about the first time he slept with a guy and wondered if Gus had already done this, and the way he felt when he realized he wasn't going to get an answer to that, and how he'd felt all those lonely, sticky nights he couldn't talk to anyone. He realized with a warm, uncurling feeling in his chest that his hand was gripping Gus' on the cushion between them. He slowly bent his head down and kissed Gus' hand, rubbing it with his thumb fondly, squeezing it, enjoying the way it fit into his palm. He smiled and looked up, and saw with relief that Gus was smiling back, and he felt so stupid for going off and stealing a car and running away from this, and how he could have had this ten years ago had he opened his eyes and just taken a look. But it wasn't too late, was it, because Gus would have said something if it was - he was smart about emotions, there was a word for that - emotional intelligence or something - but he would know because he was clever and went to college and had had real relationships before where the aftermath of sex was hazy pillow talk, not awkward conversations with sharp words that stung like needles. He knew things.

And so Shawn put his other hand on Gus' shoulder, tossing the cushion away, and he knelt on the sofa and dipped his head down, ever so slightly, and very gently kissed Gus' mouth. Well, the corner of his mouth, anyway, because Shawn had terrible aim in these matters and his eyes were closed because a tiny part of him was still terrified that he'd lose Gus through this or because of this or despite this, really, he was always terrified when it came to these things - he always split before the first 'i love you' and didn't care if he left his sweatshirt behind. Even if it was the nice soft one that had belonged to Gus originally that was currently probably in Austin, with that redhead who had the most spectacular sunburns he'd ever seen. But Gus didn't seem to mind about the sweatshirt, or about the fact that Shawn was kissing him roughly and nibbling his lip intently, or that Shawn was grinding down on his lap and there was a good chance he wasn't wearing anything underneath those faded jeans that probably hadn't been washed in months. And so Shawn didn't say anything when Gus slid out from under him and straddled him, unbuttoning whatever he could and ripping apart whatever he couldn't, kissing a long line down his neck, his chest, making Shawn throw his head back and hit it against the sofa arm with an unholy noise that made Gus look up in concern. Shawn waved his hand, a breathless "I'm fine" choked out as Gus ran his hands down to Shawn's hips and glanced up at him, as if for permission, cocking an eyebrow in that are you sure this is a good idea Shawn are you sure you want to do this is this your final answer Shawn way he used all the time, far too frequently, and Shawn grinned because he had missed that look and he nodded once, twice, sure that this was what he wanted, that this was all he'd wanted for ten years, and the fact that Gus still was giving him an out meant more than what was to come ever possibly could.

And then his jeans were being unzipped and Gus was licking and sucking him and Shawn felt so lost - he wanted to laugh and cry and moan and make all sorts of bizarre noises but just couldn't bring himself to and was reduced to grasping at his own hair and staring at the ceiling, letting out harsh pants that were half-groan half-nothing, hoping that this was not a dream. Gus stopped then, with an obnoxious smacking noise that brought color to Shawn's cheeks, and although every fiber of Shawn's being wanted nothing more than to put his hands on Gus' shoulders and push him back down, he sat up, looking at Gus with trepidation. Gus crawled back up, slipping a hand inside Shawn's jeans and reaching for the back of his head with the other, fiercely kissing him as he moved his slick hand back and forth until Shawn was arching away and moaning into the kiss, his hands balling up Gus' shirt. Shawn sank his head onto Gus' shoulder, breathing hard, barely feeling Gus wipe his hand on Shawn's shirt, or the way he pulled Shawn towards him, rubbing circles into his back, or the gentle way he kissed Shawn's hair.

Eventually, Shawn looked up, a dopey smile plastered across his face, and he gave Gus a sweet, short kiss that turned into something dirty and wet too soon, and Gus was on his back on the other end of the sofa now, and Shawn was kissing and biting at his neck. Gus asked him to slow down and he sped up, licking at Gus' collarbone and flicking his thumbs across his nipples eagerly until he felt Gus' fingers twist in his hair and pull him away with a meaningful look. Shawn bent down to kiss him again, an apology kiss, almost, if Shawn was into that. He wasn't though, and so it was just a kiss, and he settled between Gus' legs, liking the feel of his hands in Shawn's hair, playing with the back of his head, making his hair into tiny twisted bunches - oh and then Gus was dragging his fingers back and forth through Shawn's hair and moaning when he sucked harder, when he pressed his tongue up against the underside. Gus pushed his hips forward, until Shawn was swallowing around him, until Gus came with a shout and Shawn wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He crawled up and wound his arms around Gus, mumbling nonsense about spoons and how there wasn't enough room. Gus raised a fist in the air and Shawn bumped it with his own, smiling when he felt Gus' arm around him, holding him close.

g.) They were twenty-six and happy.


End file.
